Lao Tzu once said: “The genuine experience of being loved gives you strength and power, while loving someone with all your heart gives you courage.” I owe this new strength and courage in my heart to the beautiful and wise woman who today said yes to my proposal that we begin the journey of a shared life.

The forces that often alter the variables of time and place are also forces that shape and transform what we think about ourselves. They existed long before our birth and will continue after our death.

We know that we can spend our entire lives running from our own story, or accept our vulnerability and step into life’s journeys that remain untravelled. Running from our story and living without one is always the easier choice. All we need to do is give up loving and living passionately, and ignore the call of the heart to seek a deeper meaning in life. But I have never been ready to abandon my story or ours—not today, and not ever. We have only just opened a new chapter in the book of life.

Aydin and Hannah Areta
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